Thursday 14th June to Sunday 17th June (Father's Day)


The breakfast at the Hotel Fiume was not a McDonalds and we eat well before we set off in what was to be a nice day weatherwise. Our destination for today was yet another country - Romania and luckily we had some currency leftover from our round the world trip last year so the hassles of finding a bankomat were put to one side this time. We reached the border crossing quite quickly as Bekescaba was not too far away and a quick passport check and we were in and on our way south.


The roads were very busy, full of trucks and vans stuck in long jams and we soon reaslised that our sat navs were taking us on a southerly main road route which avoided the mountains - this was not what we wanted so at Arad we headed east towards Deva and we soon picked up nice back roads through the foothills of the mountain ranges.

Our route took us through the Judental Gorge alongside the Jui river and eventually we found a roadside motel - the Europa - where we had a good night's stay for around £35 including evening meal and breakfast for us both and by extreme good fortune...a waitress with nice boobies who insisted on leaning over in front of us to display her wares....... it's been a long dusty road he said with his tongue hanging out.

Judental Gorge

Friday morning was upon us and we set off early (bearing in mind that we lost an hour crossing into Romania) and our destination today was the Horizons mini bike meet at Doug's Moto Camp in Bulgaria.
We made good time to the Romanian/Bulgarian border which was crossed, not by road, but by ferryboat. We paid our dues and soon we were being carried across the river at Orahovo and off into a relatively quick border crossing the other side.

Goodbye Romania.. on the Ferryboat

We soon found a fuel station that took our visa card so we now had enough petrol to get us to Doug & Polly's Moto Camp but the local bancomat was out of service so we didn't manage to get any Bulgarian currency until much further into the journey in the city of Pleven where, purely by luck we missed the bypass road, and ended up outside a bank with an all shininhg bancomat ready to dish us out some dosh.

Bulgaria

 

 

 

On the road in Bulgaria

Loaded up with our Bulgarian Levs we set off and by 3pm we were turning into the gates of Doug & Polly's biker camp just in time to have a cold beer before we unpacked. It was very hot so we opted for a room instead of sleeping in a hot tent toasting in the hot Bulgarian sunshine.  

Doug & Polly's Moto Camp

Inside the gates

 


Doug & Polly made us very welcome and soon more bikers turned up and we sat and drank beer and chatted until we couldn't stay awake - around 10.30pm - what lightweights we have become in our old age !


Saturday morning and we awoke to blue cloudless skies and decided to go out on a ride with a few of the other bikers. We spent a few hours in the hills visiting a few of the local sites and stopped for a long lunch at a roadside restaurant not far from the Trojanski monastery. One thing we learned about Bulgaria is that they have to have cigarette or three with everything and we stopped frequently on the ride for a smoking break - we soon found out that it was a race to get to the shady spot for the stop or you would soon bake in the midday sunshine.


Same again for the evening- a couple of cold beers and chatting - we actually managed 12.30 before hitting the sack !


So here we are on Sunday - lazy day under the shade of the bar roof just catching up with washing etc etc...........